Cigarettes
by Emerald54
Summary: Sometimes, Luci lied without really thinking about it. AU, Genderswap.


A/N: This is part of a larger story that I wrote as part of NaNoWriMo. It's still being rewritten, but about 70% of it is done. I know there's another genderswap for Luke out there, but I can't for the life of me find it in my bookmarks. The real story of Luci (who, I feel I should add, is a au of an au genderswap) should be starting within the next two weeks or so, but I don't really think that prior knowledge is a necessary for this.

Title: Cigarettes

Summary: She took up smoking right around the time of the first assassination attempt.

Rating: PG (Though, there's some gore in there, but nothing truly graphic.)

oOo

_Driving faster in my car,  
>Falling farther from just what we are.<br>Smoke a cigarette and lie some more,  
>These conversations kill.<em>

_Falling in faster in my car._

Big Empty – Stone Temple Pilots

oOo

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that she's not a spy anymore. That she's not going to have to roll out of bed at two in the morning to assassinate someone, that she isn't going to sit under a heavy weight of fear and a wig of dark brown hair and pray to a Force she's half sure is there only to hurt that one of her sisters will comes back with her cover intact and with all her limbs attached. Sometimes, when she wakes in a cramped room with Inyri sleeping in the bunk across from her, she sits up and waits for Isard to come with an interrogation droid, until she remembers that the former Director of Intelligence is currently smeared across a hyperspace vector near Thyferra.

Sometimes, it's hard to remember that she doesn't have to use a cover.

When people ask her why she smokes, Luci has always had a pat answer that she doesn't even have to think about telling them the real reason. The lie slips so easily off her tongue she doesn't even realize it's spoken until they're laughing at her, accepting it as the truth. Luci blinks, smiles back at them, and has to send up a prayer to every deity she can think of that the Rogues never look closer at the answer she provided without her brain having anything to do with the process. Because the lie she tells people is simple, told so people can draw their own conclusions.

So, when Luci answers Corran's question with _teenage rebellion turned addictive_ what's under the lie is a deep putrid pit of _I thought I'd be long dead by now_ and the red-gray mess of _I used to smoke a cigarette so my sisters couldn't smell the blood on me._

Sometimes, at twenty-seven, Luci wonders if she knows how to do anything other then lie.

oOo

Luci took up smoking cigarettes right around the time of the first assassination attempt.

She'd watched Mara's body jerk as it took the vibroblade meant for Lioa, and heard the screams of her fellow students like she was in the middle of a sandstom, where your deaf to everything but the wind. Lioa had ducked away from another vibroshiv, but the blade had nicked her ribs – which Luci was only thankful for when she woke up dreaming about that knife in her twin's heart – and the vibrations had broken two while slicing through another one. Luci had blinked, and both men were dead. Another blink, and she had her school sweater off, pressing it around Mara's wound. A third blink, and Luci was giving medical histories for both Mara and Lioa, her hands shaking for some reason.

When one of her classmates offered her a cigarette to calm her shakes, she accepted and learned how to breath the smoke in without losing a lung fairly quickly. It was the start of her addiction to cigarettes and the start of her career as a rebel spy.

She was twelve years old.

oOo

Fixer was the first person to confront her about her smoking, mostly because Mara and Lioa were in bacta again, after the fourth assassination attempt, and she couldn't get out of the Medcenter half as fast as she'd wanted.

"Why are you smoking?" He'd asked, and Luci, sitting on the steps of the service entrance to the Palace Medcenter while finishing off her cigarette had bit back her honest reply of _because I can't fix the fact my sisters are floating in bacta, and smoking seems to help stop the shaking._ Instead, she'd shrugged with all the forced blasé that she'd learned from Senator Bail Organa, and tightened her fingers on the cheap flimsi box of cigarettes. Fixer had grunted at that, and then taken off his helmet, digging under a thighplate to pull out a box of his own cigarettes. Luci had been surprised, and he'd given her a long look before gruffly telling her,

"Don't tell my brothers, I won't tell your sisters. Now gimmie your lighter."

When Luci had asked the same question that would be posed to her again and again over the course of the next decade, Fixer gave her a long look, and took a long drag of his cigarette, her lighter twirling between her fingers. When he'd finally answered, Luci had been a little horrified. Now, looking back, she could see that Fixer had seen Kashyyyk all over again, only instead of four commandos, there were three girls, one of them carrying the guilt of lives lost and innocence shattered. He'd known, understood it in a way that only someone who'd drug their bleeding siblings out of the line of fire could. Fixer hadn't been surprised in the least about Luci's career choice.

"Didn't expect to live this long. Maybe it'll be a little faster this way."

Yeah, Fixer had gotten her, even she she hadn't gotten herself.

Even on her thirteenth birthday.

oOo

Terrwyn was the first person in her household proper to pick up the pattern.

"Those things will kill you. You and Fixer both, Luci Shmi." Luci, smoking on the one balcony that the wind blew away from, had merely taken another drag, giving the twi'lek a look that meant she honestly didn't give a good goddamn if it killed her. The aging twi'lek that Luci had known even then was spying on them for the Rebellion made a sighing sound and plopped herself down on a chair she dragged over, safely upwind of Luci's cigarette. Imperial City had glittered below her in the dark of Coruscate's night, bright and malevolent to Luci's mind. Terrwyn was silent though, as Luci had used the butt of her cigarette to light another one. It had always like this on these night, when the Voice Sung of petrifying terror and pain.

"You can't protect them forever, love. And this is killing you." Terrwyn said gently, and Luci could not have stopped the bitter laugh that had burst from her for anything. They both knew that, for all the seamstress is spying on them, Terrwyn was right. She was right that on a cool night when chaos was about to erupt on Coruscate, she put herself away, and chain smoked like a reactor in the Works because it was the only way to keep herself from running after those she loved. Terrwyn had shifted uneasily next to her, seemingly aware that this time was best spent either busy or alone for Luci. Luci could remember Fixer's words, almost like a mantra or chant – a _taabir,_ as funny as it sounded now. _Maybe it'll be a little faster this way. Maybe I'll get caught tomorrow and all of this won't matter._

"Yeah," Luci had agreed, and then lied honestly "but it might make it a little better in the end."

She'd been sixteen, and standing vigil for her sisters safe return.

oOo

Mara and Lioa received confirmation of their suspicions at the same time.

They'd been in the Undercity, with Asyr and Jax, and the Bothan had offered them a cigarette with hard eyes and a calculating expression. Lioa and Mara had both said none of them smoked, but Asyr had still held out the packet of cigarettes, her eyes becoming less friendly by the second. When Luci had sighed, muttered an apology for the lie and took one, Asyr had smiled, while Lioa and Mara had stared at her in unabashed shock. Luci had lit up, and when Fixer made a irritated noise and took one as well, Asyr had given them all an approving look. They weren't bigoted enough to refuse a smoke from an alien. Luci had made an interested noise – it hadn't been't her usual brand, but it had certainly been better.

"What are these?" She'd asked, and, catching Mara's murderous look, she'd sighed to herself. Mara had looked like she was going to kill Luci with her bare hands, and Luci could remember that it was clear Lioa would have gladly helped. Luci had shifted, and Jax had diplomatically suggested that they take it outside. Fixer, in the back of the room, had been busy dealing with Scorch and Boss's combined glares. They were smart men, and it hadn't taken a genius to figure out that Fixer's smoke breaks had neatly coincided with Luci's. Asyr had been all for it, and the command group had moved out. Luci had held back with her sisters for a few seconds and the words tumbled out of their own accord.

"It's only-" _Only when I'm not there to protect you. Only when I can't take the fall for you. Only when your bleeding or bruised. Only when I can feel your adrenaline and fear. Only when Cracken threatens you. Only when your out of my sight, on a risky mission for a Rebellion that would kill us given half a chance. Only when I need the distraction so I don't haul you back to safety and bury you under a rock. Only when I'm scared out of my mind that I'm going to be left alone_. "-when your gone."

Newly nineteen, and still protecting her sisters in every way, even from herself.

oOo

Vader and the Emperor found out exactly two hours before they died.

Both of them – like two, giant, evil mynocks, only the Emperor smelled like that rotting Nubian perfume he liked, and Vader smelled like leather and danger – caught her taking a final smoke with a bunch of stormtroopers. Vader wasn't the one that flipped out, surprisingly. Instead the Emperor had been the one that smacked her with his cane, and demanded an immediate halt to 'such unladylike behavior, the likes of which I have never 'till this moment.' Of course, he'd also demanded that Luci join the Dark Side, and take her place at his side, and all around kill her father.

Palpatine had never looked better with his head separated from his body.

Vader had Sounded like pride and pain.

Even at twenty-three, finally an orphan, dragging her father's corpse through the halls of the doomed Death Star, she'd liked him a hell of a lot better then any other Imperial.

oOo

"Hey, Lu?" Luci looked up from where she was taking a smoke break from keeping an eye on Isard, and looked at her commanding officer, not bothering to straighten up or salute, knowing that this would be a casual conversation. Her guess was proven correct when he leaned against the catwalk support next to her, and looked out over their X-wings. She gave him a smile, and made a questioning sound, even as she turned her body away from her watch. A quick relieved smile was what she got for her efforts, and without thinking she took in the way he stood with one hand near where his side arm should be, the lines of stress on his forehead and the tension in his jaw. All of what she'd gleaned off of her quick glance added up to one thing: Luci wasn't the only one taking a break from her duties to think about anything other then the plots and plans of Yusanne Isard.

"Why'd you really start smoking?'

The question shouldn't have surprised her - she'd never really had any defenses when it came to him, never had any way of saying anything other then the complete and honest truth - but for some reason, all she could do was feel the sudden stiffness in her muscles, the way her face went to a complete and utter blankness that she associated with Her Grace. It's not that she's ashamed, it's just that the truth was so dangerous, mixed with blood of her sisters and the ash of traitors burned, the smell washed away by sewers and cigarette smoke. Luci knew that she was shaking, but it wasn't the cigarettes type of shake. It was an odd mixture of fear and shyness. She didn't want to lose him or the Rogues, so she had to explain, but _how_ did you explain red blood on a schoolgirl's jacket? A birthday gift of blasterbolts and bacta? Aching vigils and clutching relief? A mixture of protection and lies so two sisters could sleep a little better at night?

Luci wasn't sure anyone would want to know.

"You don't have to tell me. Not if you don't want." And Gada bless him, he was so far out of her league that it sometimes made her hurt. He was far to a good person for her to consider doing anything with him. She shook her head, and took a drag, her eyes meeting his. The unspoken apology was there, and Luci slid down the poll to swing her legs over the edge of the catwalk. It wasn't as easy as it had once been - not with the knee she now had to be careful for - but it wouldn't stop her. He joined her, and they sat there like children as Luci tried to figure out how best to put it.

"I was twelve when I started. I don't remember much, it wasn't the best of all days and it was a long time ago..."

At thirty, she finally told the truth about her relationship with cigarettes.


End file.
